Ukip provides 75% fewer candidates for councils

Ukip said that Gerard Batten, its acting leader, had achieved a remarkable turnaroundJOE GIDDENS/PA

Ukip has been judged “virtually dead” after the party registered 75 per cent fewer candidates for next month’s local elections than stood in 2014.

The anti-EU party is on course to have only about 550 candidates, or 12 per cent of those possible, on May 3, according to its spokesman. This is down from 2,193 candidates, or 52 per cent of all seats, that Ukip fielded four years ago in the last comparable poll.

Nominations for candidates closed at 4pm yesterday and analysis by Lord Hayward, a Conservative pollster, showed that Ukip’s tally of candidates had declined even in former strongholds. In Sunderland, Hyndburn in Lancashire, Nuneaton, and Fareham, Hampshire, Ukip is fielding either no candidates or one or two, compared with strong slates in…

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